Page 197 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Luka

Sharing what had happened to my mother with Noa felt good.

She understood; she felt sad for me, but she had a similar experience in losing a parent.

She knew what I had gone through at that age, and she knew enough of what my mother was like now to understand why I couldn’t stand to be near her now.

To wish your own mother dead was practically a crime on Aderia, but sometimes I did think that.

If she’d died along with my father, it would have been so much better for everyone, my mother included.

To realize that not only had she become cutthroat when it came to business, but she was also doing things downright illegal, like using slave labor, made it all of a sudden not that strange to think she’d been involved in the illegal pet breeding operation up on Jihari’s moon.

No wonder my cousins had managed to find and capture me shortly after I’d arrived.

I would have preferred staying entwined with Noa a little longer, but dawn was creeping up along the horizon.

In the distance, a volcano was rumbling too, preparing to spew another rain of ashes into the sky.

She didn’t protest when I picked her up into my arms and started walking in the direction we needed to go.

“How is it even possible there’s breathable air out here?

Nothing grows here,” she asked. She was avidly looking around, surveying the desolate landscape around us.

I didn’t know—that was one of Jihari’s great mysteries.

It was why there was a science outpost; researchers were trying to discover just that.

“We don’t know for sure,” I said, “but from the last papers I read on it, I believe there’s some kind of high-heat-resistant bacteria that is extremely prolific in these volcanoes.

Supposedly, it produces the oxygen we breathe.

” It was a discovery with a lot of potential applications, possibly even regarding oxygen creation aboard a spaceship.

Imagine if the engine itself could house these bacteria and create clean oxygen as well as power?

I increased my pace, jogging across the rocky terrain.

We needed to find a place to shelter for a while; the science outpost was still at least a day out from our position if I’d judged our direction correctly.

We’d do well to find a hiding spot so that, come morning, we wouldn’t be picked up by the search parties my mother would no doubt send out.

When I spotted the first cave opening, I doubted the safety of ducking inside one of those.

They were no doubt made by lava flowing through the rock at some point.

If a nearby volcano started to rumble, the rock ceiling could cave in on us.

I had to weigh our options, how high was that risk compared to the risk of staying out in the open?

If we did, I was fairly certain a patrol would pick us up immediately.

I debated whether to share this with Noa for only a brief moment, but it was only fair that she make the choice to take the risk, whichever risk she preferred.

As I listed our options, she remained calm, nodding along until she pointed at the same cave opening I’d already spotted.

There had been plenty just like it along the way so far, but this one looked a little more inviting than the others, mostly because of some purple crystals surrounding the opening—it was sort of pretty.

“Let’s do it, Luka. What are the chances the nearest volcano is gonna go off?

They’ve had eruptions more to the west the past few days, pressure has just been released,” she said.

She vaguely gestured in some direction that, by my calculations, was absolutely not west, but her point was still valid.

The choice made, I jogged to the cave opening, checking several times over my shoulder to make sure that, while the sky was lightening, no vessels had left the dome yet.

Once we ducked inside, I breathed a sigh of relief.

With so much volcanic activity, body heat signatures would be much harder to pick up.

Steam wafted from one of the openings in this cave; there were hot springs inside.

We didn’t go far, only as far as the first chamber, a space that had widened into a rounded bowl with two tunnels splitting off.

It was comfortably warm inside but not hot, and with no ashes falling from above, it was actually pleasant, if dark.

It was enough to attract Pato’s interest; he climbed from my shirt onto my shoulder as I set Noa to her feet.

Then he leaped down and scuttled off into the dark.

“Okay, good. Let’s see if we can make ourselves comfortable and get some sleep,” I offered, slinging my rolled-up pack of blankets from my back and setting about spreading them out on a flat stretch of ground.

My eyes weren’t particularly suited for this dark setting, but Noa seemed to struggle even more.

Once I had a spot for her to sit, I guided her down, and the two of us sat in silence for a moment.

I was debating how to break that silence, a million inane questions running through my head.

I wanted to learn everything about her; I wanted to hear her voice, hear her laughter.

Somehow, despite having trained to talk about simple pleasantries just to reassure patients, nothing was coming out of my mouth now.

Pato showed up with a surprise, interrupting what was starting to become an uncomfortable silence.

“What have you got there, buddy?” I asked as the tiny pinche monkey climbed into my lap and held out his find.

Light bathed our faces, glittering sun-stones lying on his tiny palms. They were raw, unpolished.

They glowed, but their light wasn’t the brilliant shine of a processed stone.

It was still more than enough to see by, and the three stones he was holding were also worth a small fortune.

“Wow, they’re so beautiful!” Noa whispered, and Pato held out a tiny black palm to offer her one of the three.

She took it reverently, the light bathing her face golden, making the ashes covering most of her skin even more noticeable.

Her blonde hair was almost gray, her skin sallow, but her blue eyes sparkled.

“You’re beautiful,” I said, then felt awkward when I realized that had just slipped out, uncensored.

She started to smile, shaking her head. Then, she indicated her dirty clothing, picked up a lock of her hair, and started laughing harder.

I eyed my own hair—normally black; it had turned grayish white—my skin streaked with ashes.

“I guess we need to find a place to clean up.”

“Yeah, but I’m starving. Even the ration bars are sounding good at this point,” Noa pointed out, and she pulled the bag her friends had given her closer.

Lifting the flap, she pulled out a ration bar and tossed it my way.

I caught it, opened it, and promptly handed half my bar to Pato, who happily traded the rest of his stones for the food.

I balanced them on my knee so they could light up the space as we ate.

We were quiet, focused on filling our bellies.

Then I inventoried the number of ration bars in the bag—I didn’t want to risk running out.

If we stowed away on a science vessel, there was no telling how long we’d have to wait until we could get more food.

I was fairly certain that the scientists would be willing to help us, but that wasn’t a sure thing.

I wasn’t going to risk showing ourselves to anyone until we were well off the planet.

As I made neat stacks of the bars on the blanket in front of me, I concluded that her friends had given us more than just food.

They’d added what was most likely the kitchen’s first aid kit.

My heart started pounding in excitement as I noticed it.

I pulled it free of the bag and flipped open the clasps to look inside.

Yes, a medical scanner. It was low-grade, but good enough to tell us the basics and scan food and water to make sure it was safe to ingest.

Holding it up, I flicked it on and made a basic scan of Noa and then myself.

I worried about Noa’s exhaustion; she was also low on quite a lot of vital nutrients, so I checked the labels on the various ration bars before sticking another one in her hands.

She rolled her eyes but dutifully ate it.

My body was in top condition, though, with some elevated hormone levels that explained my extra strength and endurance.

In Aderian Lore, true mates would experience perks, physical enhancements, and greater gifts.

I had always thought these myths were vastly exaggerated, but it was starting to look like they were true.

I had no other explanation right now for what Noa and I were experiencing together.

If it was true, it was going to make giant waves in Aderian society.

It wouldn’t surprise me if males started searching out human females en masse to see if they could find their true mate.

I checked Pato too, just to be sure. He’d been through quite the ordeal before I’d found him, but the past three weeks at the Jihari resort had been good for him, and he was in peak health.

When Noa offered him the shiny inside of her ration bar wrapper, he turned up his nose at it and reclaimed his two sun-stones from my knee instead.

She laughed. “Oh, so that’s not good enough? You’re spoiled with your treasures of jewels and gems. I thought you were a monkey, not a dragon.” Pato responded by making a chittering noise that almost sounded like laughter, his emotional aura telling me he was amused—happy, content.

“Let’s find some water. It looks like neither of us thought to bring any, and your friends didn’t either,” I said.

We definitely needed water by now. It was a full day’s walk still to the outpost; we needed something before then.

Pato leaped away, stones in one hand. He ran to the tunnel he’d already explored, then paused and looked back at us.

I shared a look with Noa, and then the two of us got up and followed him.

I checked on Noa’s progress as she walked, making sure to scan the cave floor for sharp objects.

I didn’t want her to step on another sharp stone, her shoes were not adequate, and I was cursing myself for not thinking about better shoes for her.

I was glad I’d brought her clothes, but shoes would have been much smarter.

With the light of our raw sun-stones, we could tell that the tunnel wound left and right, with several pools of water steaming the air.

Those were too hot, and my scanner told me they contained concentrations of sulfur or other harmful minerals too high for Noa to ingest. Pato didn’t pause at any of those, leading us to another chamber much like the first, with several big pools of water.

At the end, one was steaming, but they were staggered into shallower bowls going down the sloped cave, and the one at the bottom read as cool enough to bathe in.

This water was also from a cleaner source—safe to drink for a few days in reasonable amounts.

It was at once clear that this was where Pato had found his sun-stones. The cave was covered in them, making the entire space glow. Some of these sun-stones were huge crystals piercing out from the wall, as big as my arm—some even bigger.

My breath caught at how valuable this was and how crazy my mother would go over a find like this.

She’d mine it all up, sell these stones, and triple the Nerizana fortune.

She’d tear this planet to shreds for more, and she’d never stop to appreciate just how beautiful this cave was on its own.

How long it had survived, undamaged by the volcanoes that ravaged Jihari every day.

I tilted my face to look at Noa, to bask in her wonder as she took in the sight.

Noa had no idea what sun-stones were worth; she just thought they were pretty, and that was that.

I was incredibly glad to be sharing this moment with her.

Then, she tilted her head my way with a smirk on her ash-smeared face.

“So, what’s the verdict, Doc? Safe to swim?

” She jabbed her finger at the lowest pool.

When I smiled back, nodding in confirmation, she grabbed the bottom of her oversized sweater and yanked it over her head.

The warmth of the caves had made her skin gleam with sweat.

The white tanktop she wore clung to her skin, almost transparent in places.

My cocks instantly twitched to attention in my pants, and I watched with bated breath as she shucked the long pants and her inadequate shoes.

With a smirk, she bared herself completely, revealing the extent of her beautiful body art, her proud, firm breasts, and the gentle flare of her hips.

“Are you joining me?” she asked, laughter coloring her aura and her voice.

She sashayed to the smaller pool, carefully dipping just a toe in to check the temperature.

Then she sat down on the smooth stone edge and dangled her legs over it into the pool.

She was alluring, with her hair draped over her shoulders, the soft, smooth curve of her butt, and her spine.

I dragged my clothes from my body in a rush, feeling like Pato was laughing at me from his perch on one of the giant sunstones. I didn’t care what the monkey thought at this point; all I cared about was what Noa was feeling, and I was planning on making her feel really good.

First, though, I leaped into the pool, eager to wash myself clean before I turned all my attention to my female, my mate. My true mate, if I was right.